How nature nourishes the brain

The human brain did not evolve at an office desk. In fact, for most of human history, we have spent our lives outdoors. Yet, today, many of us will spend significant amounts of our day inside, only to leave our desks and be confronted by overcrowded streets in a concrete jungle.

Reflecting on this, there have been an increasing number of investigations into the possible benefits of getting people back into nature - with positive results. In particular, nature- based interventions have been reported to promote mental health and wellbeing, improve attention, and reduce stress.

The benefits of nature can be observed in the brain

Associations between nature exposure and activation of brain areas involved with stress, rumination, and negative affect have been observed. One study found that, in healthy volunteers, a 90- minute walk in a natural setting reduced neural activity in the subgenual prefrontal cortex (sgPFC), an area of the brain that has been linked with self- focused behavioural withdrawal that is associated with rumination in both depressed and healthy individuals. Another study has shown that amygdala activation decreases after a walk in nature, suggesting that going for a walk in nature can have benefits on stress-related brain regions. These findings suggest that there are specific neural pathways through which nature experience may improve wellbeing. With these benefits in mind, there has also been recent interest into the possible pain-relieving effects of nature interventions.

Chronic pain is common, but not well treated

Chronic pain has a prevalence of around 34% in the UK, affecting almost 28 million adults, and is a leading reason for seeking healthcare. In spite of its relative commonality, treatments are not very effective. This is often explained by the multidimensional nature of pain, i.e. that pain is impacted by many sociocultural, physical, and psychological factors that interact with and provoke one another, meaning that treatments addressing just one aspect of pain are unlikely to be completely effective.

"Amygdala activation decreases after a walk in nature, suggesting that this can have benefits on stress-related brain regions."

Cue: nature- based interventions

Given this, scientific interest into the possible therapeutic benefits of nature exposure for people living with pain has been on the rise. Firstly, exposure to nature has been shown to produce pain-relieving effects in cases of acute pain. For example, one study showed that cholecystectomy patients who were shown a view of a natural landscape had reduced pain levels and took less pain medication than patients who were shown a view of a brick wall. More recent work has focused on the use of Virtual Reality (VR), with a 45- minute immersive VR nature experience reducing the intensity and spread of experimentally- induced mechanical pain stimuli.

What next?

Future work ought to address how we might be able to fully harness the therapeutic benefit of nature interventions by working to better understand the mechanisms of how nature is so beneficial to us. We also need to consider how we can make nature interventions more accessible to a diverse range of people living with various conditions.

Conclusions

Overall, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that exposure to nature has a variety of benefits. More recent research into pain specifically has also produced some positive results. Importantly, work should aim to expand our current knowledge on the mechanisms through which nature exerts its benefits. We also need to consider how we can tailor nature interventions to be accessible to all.

References

Bratman, G. N., Hamilton, J. P., Hahn, K. S., Daily, G. C., & Gross, J. J. (2015). Nature experience reduces rumination and subgenual prefrontal cortex activation. Proceedings of the national academy of sciences, 112(28), 8567-8572.

Kaplan, S. (1995). The restorative benefits of nature: Toward an integrative framework. Journal of environmental psychology, 15(3), 169-182.

Malenbaum, S., Keefe, F., Williams, A., Ulrich, R., Somers, T. J., (2008) Pain in its environmental context: Implications for designing environments to enhance pain control, PAIN,134(3), 241-244, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pain.2007.12.002.

Medina S, Hughes SW. Immersion in nature through virtual reality attenuates the development and spread of mechanical secondary hyperalgesia: a role for insulo-thalamic effective connectivity. Pain. 2025 Jul 23;166(9):2181-2193. doi: 10.1097/j.pain.0000000000003701

NHS Digital (2019) Health survey for England 2017. NHS Digital. https://digital.nhs.uk

Wendelboe-Nelson, C., Kelly, S., Kennedy, M., & Cherrie, J. W. (2019). A Scoping Review Mapping Research on Green Space and Associated Mental Health Benefits. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16(12), 2081. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16122081

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This article was written by Lydia Roper and edited by Julia Dabrowska, with graphics produced by Eve Cottenden. If you enjoyed this article, be the first to be notified about new posts by signing up to become a WiNUK member (top right of this page)! Interested in writing for WiNUK yourself? Contact us through the blog page and the editors will be in touch.